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arXiv:0904.0150 · Physical Review A

Hidden symmetry and nonlinear paraxial atom optics

François Impens

Published Dec 8, 2009• 8 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

A hidden symmetry of the nonlinear wave equation is exploited to analyze the propagation of paraxial and uniform atom-laser beams in time-independent and quadratic transverse potentials with cylindrical symmetry. The quality factor and the paraxial $ABCD$ formalism are generalized to account exactly for mean-field interaction effects in such beams. Using an approach based on moments, these theoretical tools provide a simple yet exact picture of the interacting beam profile evolution. Guided atom laser experiments are discussed. This treatment addresses simultaneously optical and atomic beams in a unified manner, exploiting the formal analogy between nonlinear optics, nonlinear paraxial atom optics, and the physics of two-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.80.063617

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A hidden symmetry of the nonlinear wave equation is exploited to analyze the propagation of paraxial and uniform atom-laser beams in time-independent and quadratic transverse potentials with cylindrical symmetry. The quality factor and the paraxial ABCDABCDABCD formalism are generalized to account exactly for mean-field interaction effects in such beams. Using an approach based on moments, these theoretical tools provide a simple yet exact picture of the interacting beam profile evolution. Guided atom laser experiments are discussed. This treatment addresses simultaneously optical and atomic beams in a unified manner, exploiting the formal analogy between nonlinear optics, nonlinear paraxial atom optics, and the physics of two-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates.
We present a theoretical model for the propagation of non-self-interacting atom laser beams. We start from a general propagation integral equation and we use the same approximations as in photon optics to derive tools to calculate the atom-laser-beam propagation. We discuss the approximations that allow one to reduce the general equation whether to a Fresnel-Kirchhoff integral calculated by using the stationary phase method, or to the eikonal. Within the paraxial approximation, we also introduce the ABCDABCDABCD matrices formalism and the beam quality factor. As an example, we apply these tools to analyze the recent experiment by Riou et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 070404 (2006)].
We present a treatment of the nonlinear matter-wave propagation inspired by optical methods, which includes interaction effects within the atom-optics equivalent of the aberrationless approximation. The atom-optical ABCDABCDABCD-matrix formalism, considered so far for noninteracting clouds, is extended perturbatively beyond the linear regime of propagation. This approach, applied to discuss the stability of a matter-wave resonator involving a free-falling sample, agrees very well with the predictions of the full nonlinear paraxial wave equation. An alternative optical treatment of interaction effects, based on the aberrationless approximation and suitable for cylindrical paraxial beams of uniform linear density, is also adapted for matter waves.
The advent of the laser as an intense, coherent light source gave birth to nonlinear optics, which now plays an important role in many areas of science and technology. One of the first applications of nonlinear optics was the production of coherent light of a new frequency by multi-wave mixing of several optical fields in a nonlinear medium. Until the experimental realization of Bose-Einstein Condensation (BEC) there had been no intense coherent source of matter-waves analogous to the optical laser. FEC has already been exploited to produce a matter-wave `laser' leading to the threshold of a new field of physics: nonlinear atom optics. Recently the first experiment in nonlinear atom optics was reported: the observation of coherent four wave mixing in which three sodium matter waves mix to produce a fourth. The experiment utilized light pulses to create two high-momentum wavepackets via Bragg diffraction from a stationary Bose- Einstein condensate. The high-momentum components and the remaining zero momentum condensate component interact to form a new momentum component due to the nonlinear self- interaction of the bosonic atoms. We develop a quantum mechanical description, based on the slowly-varying-envelope approximation to the time-dependent nonlinear Schrodinger equation (also called the Gross-Pitaevskii equation), to describe four-wave mixing in Bose-Einstein condensates and apply this description to understand the experimental observations and to make new predictions. We examine the role of phase-modulation, momentum and energy conservation (i.e., phase-matching), and particle number conservation in four-wave mixing of matter waves.
Coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equations for paraxial optics with two circular polarizations of light in a defocusing Kerr medium with anomalous dispersion coincide in form with the Gross–Pitaevskii equations for a binary Bose—Einstein condensate (BEC) of cold atoms in the phase separation regime. In this case, the helical symmetry of an optical waveguide corresponds to rotation of the transverse potential confining the BEC. The “centrifugal force” considerably affects the propagation of a light wave in such a system. Numerical experiments for a waveguide with an elliptical cross section have revealed characteristic structures consisting of quantized vortices and domain walls between two polarizations, which have not been observed earlier in optics.
Abstract Coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equations for paraxial optics with two circular polarizations of light in a defocusing Kerr medium with anomalous dispersion coincide in form with the Gross–Pitaevskii equations for a binary Bose—Einstein condensate (BEC) of cold atoms in the phase separation regime. In this case, the helical symmetry of an optical waveguide corresponds to rotation of the transverse potential confining the BEC. The “centrifugal force” considerably affects the propagation of a light wave in such a system. Numerical experiments for a waveguide with an elliptical cross section have revealed characteristic structures consisting of quantized vortices and domain walls between two polarizations, which have not been observed earlier in optics.